photon

One of the things i've used a couple of times is to defend behind the VLs - when the attacker reaches them all he finds is a couple of TRPs - then the 105mm lovin' starts. - Photon

A lot of the thinking in the Preview thread is way over my tactical pea-brain. This is a summation of my little thinking on defense. The key to defending well is to exploit the advantages of the defender to overcome the numerical superiority of the attacker. The advantages of the defender are: 1. He should get to shoot first 2. Foxholes 3. TRPs 4. TRPs Number One is pretty self explanatory - you get off the first shot in the majority of situations unless the attacker is firing blind. If he is that suits me fine. When he runs out of bullets for the infighting he will see the error of his ways. Of course, firing blind will be effective if your men are in obvious places. So the first rule: Be somewhere he thinks you won't be. Now, this rule has variations. If you can waste the attacker's effort by being somewhere he thinks you won't be, you can do that twice or three times! Move, fall back! Break contact and force the attacker to make it again. The defense that dosen't move is a poor defense indeed. Number two again is pretty self explanatory. Each infantry unit gets a foxhole (or two) which can dramatically increase their life expectancy. How best to use these is more complicated. If you start your men at your main line of resistance when they fall back you lose the advantage of the foxholes you have dug. Dig two rows. One as a secondary line of resistance, and another as an intermediate line. We're going to get some Triplex Acies Action Going. The Roman Triplex Acies was a formation of three lines. The first was engaged in active fighting, the second was a reserve for the first, and the third was a reserve for the second. When the men of the first line grew tired (stabbing barbarians gets old after a couple of hours) they would withdraw and a man from the second line would fill their place. When he got tired (or killed for that matter) the man who was in the third line moved up to take his place. The original fighter is now the second line. They rotated soldiers to keep fresh men in the fight. You too can do this! Fall back your first line (no foxholes) to the third line and let the second line fight. Then when the second line begins to waver fall it back into the third line and advance the third line in counterattack! The thing to avoid is sitting there and slugging it out with the attacker. Rotate and move troops to both confuse him as to your strength and keep fresh men in the fight. Another thing from the ancient world that you can use is the tactics of Hannibal at Cannae. The Romans pressed hard the middle of his men, only to have them rout and retreat. The Romans, heartened by this pressed their attack, filling the void between the flanks of Hannibal's army. When his center stopped it's ordered retreat and turned to fight the enveloped Romans were destroyed. If you fall back a part of your line that is pressed you can flank the attacker without moving any men! It's also very helpful to have a reserve to fill the gap between your line that retreats and the line that holds. This makes much more sense with pictures... - Photon

I guess there are two differnt mindsets among CM players these days. I would see a battle result of what you describe as good tactics by your opponent. He identified your primary anti-tank asset before exposing his armor and removed it. Then he employed his armor in a decisive way from a protected situation. That isn't luck - it's skill. Now, it he hit your AT gun with a random barrage without spotting it, well, that is luck and you just have to deal with it and fight on! (at least IMO) It seems to me that even if you only have Shermans and Panzer IVs (A Panzer IV is pretty much as hard to kill as a KT with infantry and schrecks) running around unopposed they will wail on you. The solution isn't to restrict what tanks are available, the solution is to learn how to maul tanks without a heavy hitter. I once took out both Stugs and the Tiger in Last Defense with *only* riflemen. It can be done, and the challenge is what makes the game fun. If you want to play a game where you get all the heavy armor you want and I get only infantry I'd love it. I'll even give you a +50% modifier. It's all about challenge and learning from others tactics! - Photon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> My point is, it seems as though you have changed the armor points becouse of X complaints, but you refuse to look at the Y compliants and just say that it aint gonna happen unless somebody comes up with a better idea. I dont get this. It is you game so naturally you can do hat ever you want with it, but it sees pretty clear that you are looking at it from one side. After all, I can only speculate that the changes made came from with in BTS. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The key difference you overlook here is that the points for a particular vehicle are determined not by what Steve and Charles think they should be, but by the results of a mathematical formula they have chosen. The point distribution is simply arbitrary (as far as I know - it would be very difficult to sample good data by which you might arrange a formula to predict those) In the one case a new formula must be proposed which will appropriately price more than a hundred vehicles. In the other a new allocation must be proposed which will set a total of 5 numbers. Of the two tasks the former is the more difficult by far and therefore demands more rigor and thoughtfulness from one who would propose changes. I would wager that if someone presents a comprehensive formula set with justification that produces results that are believable for the whole range of vehicles then BTS would consider it. - Photon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Churchill VII-VIII These things have 150mm armor and can only be taken out by the long 75 and long 88 mm guns beyond 100m. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You neglect the following german units that can kill the Chruchill VII and VIII: Heer: Rifle 44 Squad Rifle 45 Squad Volksgrenadier SMG Squad Volksgrenadier Rifle Squad Pioneer Squad (!) Sicherung Squad Sturmgruppe Squad Panzergrenadier Squad Motorized Squad Panzergrenadier Pioneer Squad Motorized Pioneer Squad Escort Squad Platoon Headquarters Company Headquarters Battallion Headquarters Panzerschreck Team Flamethrower Team 150mm Infantry Gun 88mm Pak AT Gun 88mm Flak AT Gun Antitank Mines This is an abbreviated list of course. There are many many more units that can kill the Churchill. Not to mention that the short 75 it packs can almost penetrate a bag of doritos. Almost. The point of that is that pretty much any unit can kill just about any other unit (especially infantry). That dosen't mean it's easy to do, but that's where skill and luck weigh in. Combat Mission isn't about facing off one tank against another, it's about fighting a good effective combined arms battle! - Photon

My tactics on defense stem ultimately from how Hannibal defended at the battle of Cannae a couple thousand years ago. I call my particular way of defending a ridged defense. With a ridged defense there are only two places an attacker can concentrate his manouvre elements. He can either hit a ridge or a valley. A ridge is a manouvre element placed some forward of the mean position of the main line of resistance. A valley is a manouvre element placed some distance behind that line. The first situation looks something like this: The big arrow is the attackers main thrust, the little arrows are skirmish forces - the bumpy things are my MLR, and the squares are reserves. The defender here has several options. First, he can reinforce that ridge that has been attacked and blunt the attacker's momentum, forcing him to either stall or commit reserves. Assuming that the attacker's main force hits with a 3/1 advantage, doubling the strength of your ridge will make it 3/2 and probably stall the attack. His other option is to (under the cover of smoke or by squads) fall his ridge back to behind the line of his valleys. The attacer, if he exploits this and pushes into the gap the defender has created will find himself not only facing the reinforced ridge to his front, but not less than one valley firing into his flank. This is getting longish so I'm going to talk about attacks into a vally later - maybe tomorrow. - Photon Doh! mistyped the image URL [This message has been edited by photon (edited 01-20-2001).]

There is a way to both not move your main force (which would turn the battle into a meeting engagement) and yet still flank an attacker (if he is materially concentrated). I'm going to outline it in a post below (I'm making the pictures now!) - Photon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And as for whining, he presented a general garment and you claimed it to be your fit? (bonus points if you know the book thats from)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Double bonus points if you know what "garment" meant in the Atredies battle language! On the somewhat more serious topic of whiners: Saying, "I think the armor points aren't right now." isn't whining it's argument. Now, that agrument may be being made in a less than great way, but there is an argument there nonetheless. Now, saying, "CM is broken!!!! Fix Now" is whining under certain circumstances. Let's say that I lose 4 Veteran Hellcats in 2 minutes. My thought process is: OK - something is wrong here. Hellcats shouldn't die at the rate of 2 per minute. What could be the cause of this? 1. The game engine's representation of the Hellcat is flawed. 2. My opponent is a cheating bastard. 3. Lady luck is repaying me for calling her a "strumpet" last Tuesday. 4. My tactics make a Dung Beetle look like Rommel. For me 4 is the most likely followed by 3. 2 and 1 don't really enter my head until there is a fantastic preponderance of evidence to support them. Whining is saying 1 or 2 without explaining 3 or 4. When it turns out that all those hellcats had lost their TCs to snipers, were moving backwards without ammo against a Panther it will be clear that 4 is to blaim. Whining is people ignoring that they may be the cause of the crappy result and blaming BTS. This isn't cool for a couple of reasons: 1. It is annoying to read. 2. Every topic like, "BTS TANKS ALL BROKEN FIX NOW!!!!!" has the potential to take sales away from Steve, Charles, Matt, and Dan. That ain't cool. 3. It makes you look like a foo' whom Mr. T would pidy. Just my two sesterces. - Photon

As Henri's opponnent in this game I'll weigh in too. Definitely one of the best and hardest fought games I've played. I can think of three times in the game I thought: Crap! I'm screwed! FOW and luck really are queens of the battlefield. My strategy at the beginning was this: Use the M10 to keep his armor at bay (not necessarily kill it, but keep it from running all over the place. and hey - If it got kills on things I wasn't going to complain.) Use four two squad manouvre elements and my Sherman 105 to gradually assault the town. Let him take it and then use the 105 to dig his men out of buildings gradually. Now, on the first turn my M10 popped a puma, but got chewed to little gooey bits by his Hetzer. At this point I thought: Crap. I'm screwed. The 105 can't kill the hetzer unless Henri made a huge mistake with it, which I wasn't counting on. Anyway, main attack force was 2 two squad mini-platoons supported by 1919s and a 60mm mortar. They were advancing through some woods when 81mm mortar fire fell on them bigtime. one of the 1919s fell with 2 casualties and the mortar took 1. I also lost 5 riflemen and 1 man from the platoon HQ to this barrage. By this time my 105 was in town beating the crap out of his right flank. I think it broke about 2 squads and a schreck. Unfortunately, with two hetzers he worked in a beautiful side shot on my poor tankers (all of whom lived to run away luckily) However, my two mini-platoons holed up in buildings by the 81mm fire were flanked. Bad. He had a full platoon to their immediate left and one to the immediate center. I did have their reserve (2 squads, and the company HQ) moving up, but it was going to be late. Things were looking very very bad. Again I said: Crap! I'm screwed! At this point both of us were calling in mortar fire on the town and one shell (I don't know whose) hit the large light building his left platoon was holding and set it on fire. His HQ and one squad came charging out right into the guns of my men. This was (in retrospect) probably the decisive moment of the battle. It gave me time to reinforce my men and set up to defend the major VL. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do with: 4x Rifle '44 (Depleted) 1x Platoon HQ (Depleted) 2x M1919 MMG (Depleted) 1x .50 HMG (Full strength!) 2x 60mm Mortar (Out of Ammo) against two Hetzers. Except die-a-lot. Which a bunch of my guys did. The reason Henri didn't see anyone running out of the buildings he collapsed is that my whole PHQ and one whole rifle squad were casualtied in them. This was the third time I thought: Crap!! I'm screwed!! Luckily, the Hezter's worthlessness against infantry is matched only by the feared and mighty M7A3E4 Truck "Truck" armed with fenders and a copious supply of tires. They quickly ran out of ammo and proceeded to poke holes in my remaining men and buildings with AP shot. Now, I did have one more 2 squad manouvre unit off in the wings. As the game was drawing to an end they swept out of the flank full on ammo and ready to rock. Without this reserve I would have definitely lost. I had a total of 2 points of ammo left in the town. 1 with a 3 man broken rifle squad and 1 with a platoon hq. Having a good reserve for the endgame makes a HUGE difference. All in all this was one of the most fun and best fought games I've played. The lessons I would learn are: 1. I agree with Henri: Hetzers are lame against anything but tanks. I think the only mistake he made in the game was getting two of them instead of maybe a stug or stuh. (I made a couple of mistakes, like losing my on the first stupid turn M10...) 2. I agree with Henrie - German Riflemen have a really hard time dislodging US Riflemen without some big HE-whomping fun to back them up. 3. Reserves Reserves Reserves! Lots of them! Tactical and Strategic! I had half my force as reserves and this really made a difference. 4. Umm - Luck is the Queen. If that building hadn't cought fire I lose. Fast. Can't emphasize this enough. I'd rather be lucky than good any day. All in all, a tight, well fought battle! - Photon